Saving Doakes
by Kid'sDarkWolf
Summary: Deciding that telling Debs in person was too difficult, Dexter goes to Doakes to turn himself in as the Bay Harbor Butcher. The events that transpire, however, lands him a highly unexpected ally in his quest to clean the streets of Miami. 1st installment of my Becoming Human 'verse


**A/N:** I recently read a lovely story by Extraho called 'Do You Really Wanna Know?' and it opened a few questions in my mind. What if Dexter and Doakes came to an agreement and Doakes survived his stay in the cabin? What if having a confident who somewhat understood him was exactly what Dexter needed to understand the many humans around him? What if Doakes had been there in season 3? Season 4?

This series of questions gave way to a series of one-shot and story ideas revolving around Doakes being in league with Dexter and, while not always approving of him, sometimes willing to listen to him. This series of stories shall be called Becoming Human and 'Saving Doakes' shall be it's first installment.

I hope I don't disappoint.

Ps. Go read 'Do You Really Wanna Know?' by Extraho, I think it was a simple yet wonderful story.

Pss. The Disclaimer! I do not own Dexter nor the characters mentioned. They belong to Jeff Lindsay and ShowTime. I am simply using their characters for my own amusement and all those who decide to read.

**A/N End!**

_**Saving Doakes**_

I paced around as I tried to work myself up to getting ready to cook dinner for Debs and myself. I can't do it. Not to Debs. I tried to picture how it would go, how she'd react to my confession, but each one is worse then the last. I can't be the one to tell my foster sister the truth about me.

I can't trust her not to shoot me, let alone trust her to actually arrest me instead of letting me walk. I certainly can't trust myself to walk into the police station and turn myself in, even though I _know_ it's what's best for Debs, Rita, and the kids. I can't trust anyone to arrest me, except for… Doakes.

I grimace and quickly put the ingredients into the refrigerator as my other hand pulls out my phone and dials my sister. It wasn't too hard to cancel our plans, though I could tell she knew something was up. I wonder if maybe there was some unknown inflection in my voice that gave me away but at the moment I could care less.

I get in my car, take a moment to bask in the light of the whispering moon, and drive towards the cabin. I'm filled with a sense of calm while at the same time feeling my heart trembling in my chest. It's an odd sensation for a man without feelings.

I didn't expect there to be anyone else at the cabin, let alone a green jeep parked off to the side, nor Lila running towards me.

"Dexter, you poor thing!" she gushes at me and I dodge around her to make towards the door. She grabs me, tries to tell me not to go, but the slight panic in her tone, and the fact that I can hear Doakes shouting 'this is murder' makes me shove her aside and take off running for the door.

"Doakes!" I shout and his screaming stops so I unlatch the door and he falls to my feet, "What's-?"

"We need to-"

I smell gas and pull him to his feet before he can finish his sentence, we run but the blast still sends us tumbling several feet away. I blearily look up to see Lila calmly driving away.

"Why?" Doakes whispers from beside me, making me turn my head to see him trying to sit up, "Why did you save me?"

I brace my arms against the ground to push myself up as well, wincing a bit at the burns on my forearms suddenly announcing their presence, "I'm not heartless, Doakes." I feel more surprise at the fact that I almost believe myself when I say that than I've ever felt before. I shake my head and I'm on my knees now and so is Doakes, I came here for a reason, so why not get it over with.

I toss a pair of cuffs at Doakes, the same ones I'd been forced to place on my own wrists a week ago.

He catches them and stares at them dumbly so I say calmly, the pain in my arms and back numbed by my self-given mission, "I want you to be the one to take me in."

Doakes looks up at me, eyes wide and mouth agape in a way I've never seen on his face before. It's almost liberating. Almost, since I'm pretty sure I'm going to jail soon.

Then Doakes' face relaxes into his usual scowl and he straightens up his back, not a flinch to indicate the burns there, and the look in his eyes worries me. He's just made a new decision, and I can't tell for sure if I'll like it.

"No."

I'll admit I'm a bit confounded and I'm almost sure it shows on my face, "What?"

Doakes can't just _change his mind_ about this. It didn't fit his personality, nor his morals. Doakes should be jumping for joy at the prospect of _finally_ proving to the world that he was right and the Dutifully Deceitful Dexter was a freak, a sociopath, a monster. Doakes shouldn't be letting me go.

I shake my head and stare when he simply tosses the cuffs over his shoulder, "Why not?"

For that matter, why am I feeling miffed about _not_ going to prison?

"You're messed up, Morgan," Doakes looks at the remains of his former prison, a dark look in his eyes before he lets out a sigh and the look disappears, "But you're right, you're not heartless." He turns back to me with a look of understanding I've only ever seen on Harry's and later Biney's faces, "You have a family: Deborah, that girlfriend of yours, her kids…. You almost _care_ for them in your own fucked up way."

I feel myself shake my head before I ever realize I'm doing it, "I'm a serial killer with severe Dissociative Identity Disorder, a sociopath," I look at him seriously, hoping he'd understand that, too, "I can't feel care for anyone."

Doakes looks at me and I think he just might understand, but then he snorts rather derisively, "Mentally, I know you can't feel it, your fucked up mind probably would explode if it could, but in the past couple days, with you almost talking _yourself_ into turning yourself in… I think it might be there somewhere."

I look up at the solemn moon and almost hear it laughing at my struggles, then slowly look at Doakes again. I open my mouth and we both jump as my phone starts to ring but I look down and ignore Deb's call. Suddenly, sirens howl in the distance.

"If you don't take me in, I'll let them arrest you in my place." This is the only chance I'll get to be myself with anyone, and I threaten them into arresting me. How did this become my life? For that matter, what is wrong with me? Why am I so irritated with this second chance to remain free?

Surprisingly, Doakes simply snorts once more, "I don't like you, Dexter Morgan," he declares and we can see the lights headed for us, a helicopter flied over head, "But, looking back on it now, half those guys you killed were people I wanted to kill, too." The cars are almost in our clearing now, "And the fact that you're trying to get me to arrest you… it almost makes me think that, maybe, you're still human somehow."

The squad cars surround us and the copter lands, and suddenly we're surrounded by cops and FBI, guns trained on the both of us and everyone shifting glances between us. They're probably wandering why lab geek Dexter Morgan is sitting with Sergeant James Doakes, a man that supposedly wants to kill him and can, apparently, do so without any trouble.

They all presume Doakes is the Bay Harbor Butcher, after all. So, why am I here? Talking to a man that presumably wants to kill me as if he was an old friend of mine.

Deborah and Frank Lundy shove their way into the circle with us and frown at me before training their guns on Doakes.

"Dex?" Deb says slowly, "Is this why you canceled our plans?"

I glance at Doakes and he doesn't acknowledge it, knowing if he moved than a bunch of trigger-happy cops might fill him with holes, "It might be." I say calmly, shifting a bit closer to my supposed enemy that apparently no longer wants to arrest me. Why am I trying to protect a man, who I just told I'd give to the police not seconds ago, from the police? "It might also be that I found new evidence."

"New evidence?" Debs says flatly, almost blankly, "And you didn't tell me, because?"

"I had to be sure," Where am I going with this?

Her jaw clenches together and I can see her hand tighten on her gun before she throws her head to the side to dismiss me, "Well be sure over there, we need to arrest this fucker."

"I can't let you do that." Doakes' head whips towards me and I wince as I hear safeties click in response. I glance at him to see his eyes narrowed at me suspiciously.

Meanwhile, I can also see Debs getting angrier, and Lundy and Angel are on either side of her, looking at me in confusion, "Why the fuck not?" she hisses, taking one step forward to glare at me more effectively. It might have worked, if I could feel fear, "Need I remind you that Doakes is the Bay Harbor Butcher? Or that he _beat you up_, in the fucking middle of Miami Metro's Homicide Department in front of _dozens_ of fucking witnesses?"

I wince at the reminder and feel Doakes glaring at me. Obviously he forgot about our altercation at work a few weeks ago… "I can't let you arrest Doakes because, though he may seem too aggressive when it comes to working with me," I hear a few people snort at that, "He also isn't a murderer. Debs, Doakes isn't the Bay Harbor Butcher." I see her open her mouth to argue but continue talking, "I've been sitting here with him for almost half an hour. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it by now."

She throws her hands in the air in aggravation and then huffs out loudly, "How the fuck would you know that?"

I almost say 'Because _I_ happen to be the Bay Harbor Butcher' but I've always hated that name and I also don't want to be the one to tell Debs that, "Because he was in Central America when the Butcher started killing."

Beside me, I hear Doakes give an intake of breath (because I had to hack into several high-security black-ops records to find that out) and off in the crowd around us, I swear I hear Maria LaGuerta give a 'oh, thank the lord' in Spanish.

"Debs," I say calmly, wincing as I get to my feet, "I am in firm belief that Doakes was framed."

The next couple hours pass in a blur. Me and Doakes get our burns cleaned and bandaged in the back of an ambulance, forensics show up to process the explosion, and I quietly sit with a still stunned Doakes in the back of a police cruiser, each of us wrapped in a shock blanket.

He finally looks at me calmly after all the after-math attention is mostly away from us, "Thanks, Morgan."

I raise a brow, "We still need to…" I pause for a moment to think of the correct word, "Find that man who framed you."

"That's very reassuring coming from the man who actually framed me," wow, now that all the excitements worn off, he seems like he's aggravated at himself for _not_ taking me in. Funny how I'm feeling the exact opposite of him right now.

I decide to pretend not to notice, "Anyway, I have three dirty cops in mind," he snaps his head over to stare at me, "Officer Jorge Bronzo, a drug smuggling cop who started as a forensics intern in college and later became an officer in Narcotics in Dade County. Than we have Homicide Officer Justin Finkry, he started out a CSI in Jersey before his transfer and academy training here in Miami, he's part of our Homicide Department, he's been in the Human Trafficking business since he was nineteen. And lastly, also in our Homicide Department, there's a former Lab Tech that was recently suspended on suspicions of tampering with evidence not a couple weeks ago. Kyle Mithu, also known as the Beach Goer, our serial rapist case we worked with vice that went cold last year."

Doakes stared at me, probably feeling horrified at how methodical I was making it all seem, "Christ, Morgan," he finally breathed, "How can you expect me to throw one of those guys to the hounds."

"I'd like to suggest Kyle Mithu, though I'd have no qualms about going after Finkry," I said rather dryly, "I only threw in Jorge Bronzo because having only two choices seemed a bit out of pattern."

"So those last two guys, either way, you're probably gonna take out anyway." He looked a bit sick at the prospect and I leaned back just in case. Just because he could accept that he let a serial killer walk doesn't mean he's gonna have the stomach to talk about it.

"Not Finkry, I have a huge file I plan to give to Vice soon on him to get rid of him. As filthy as that man is, he's only responsible for one death, and that was years ago, it's Mithu I planned to kill soon." Maybe I was freaking him out with this? Am I being spiteful because he refused to arrest me? Huh, I'd have to look into that later.

Doakes glared at me, "You just told me that Mithu's your target, and you basically said giving me a choice was to fuck with my head. The hell's wrong with you?"

I look at the ceiling as I see Debs heading over to the car, "I hate blood, yet I'm a blood spatter analysis that kills people. You tell me."

Debs opens the passenger door and gets in, "Okay, guys, Batista's gonna take us to the station for your official statements, and than we're going to get a late dinner and both of you are staying at my place."

Doakes opened his mouth to argue but I placed a hand on his arm, ignoring his rather unmanly flinch in response. He didn't say anything else.

Huh, maybe I damaged him more with my petty mind-games than I realized. I looked at his face and grimaced at the palor to his skin and he looked back at me. The color returned and he glared at me, but there was the understanding once more as he nodded at me as if to say 'apology accepted.'

I guess in saving Doakes and _not_ getting arrested, I made an ally. An ally who hated me, but understood me at the same time. An ally who, maybe, just maybe, still believed I was human. Somehow.

**A/N:** Well then... I hope I did this idea justice. I realize both men may be out of character (Doakes more so than Dexter, surely) but I thought that the situation they were in would be at least partially traumatizing (especially to Doakes: he listened to Dexter kill someone and than almost got killed by Lila, after all) and make them act a bit unusually.

I don't know when I'll post another installment to this little 'verse I created with this one-shot, but I sure hope you all enjoyed this one.

_Forever Fascinated_,

Kid'sDarkWolf


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